For the second time in less than a decade, Wimbledon's fans have been robbed by Milton Keynes. Ten years ago the new town took their football club.

And on Sunday afternoon, right at the last, their place in the FA Cup was snatched from under their eyes.

Already past the allotted time, with the scores tied, the Battle of the Dons appeared to be heading for a second instalment.

Then Steven Gregory, the captain of AFC Wimbledon, the phoenix club born from the most bitterly contested geographical switch in English football history, won the ball on the edge of the home area and unleashed a shot which appeared to be heading for the bottom corner.

Behind the goal, 3000 AFC fans, who had spent the afternoon disparaging their hosts in a series of pointed chants, prepared to celebrate their vindication.

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But the home keeper David Martin - one of two players in the MK line-up who made the move north back in 2003 - dived to his right and pushed the ball behind.

From the resulting corner, MK burst upfield. The former Liverpool player Jon Otsemobor slung in a cross which was headed behind.

As the corner came in, there was a flurry of push and shove. MK Dons's Dean Lewington and AFC's Pim Balkestein were wrestling on the turf as the ball fell for the MK substitute Zeli Ismail.

His mishit shot seemed innocuous enough, but as it passed him, Otsemobor flicked his heel at the ball. It looped past Neil Sullivan for the most dramatic of winners, cueing unfettered joy in the MK sections, as several dozen fans invaded the pitch to join in the exuberant celebrations of the bench.

"Maybe I got a bit excited but I'm not going to apologise," said the MK manager Karl Robinson. "It's been a tough week. But this was a good day for English football."

A good day for MK, for sure. The most maligned football club in the country, whose fans have borrowed the old Millwall chant of "no-one likes us, we don't care", now progress to a third round engagement at Sheffield Wednesday.

Not that the AFC fans will be watching. All game, the poison had sizzled. If this was the magic of the Cup, it was of a dark variety.

The visitors kept up a litany of chants about theft and franchising. In response, a banner was unfurled in the MK which read: "We're keeping the Dons, just get over it."

For once in this usually most anodyne of stadiums, it seemed appropriate that the players were soundtracked on to the pitch by Guns and Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle".

In truth, for much of the first half, there was little on the pitch to distract from the rancour in the stands. MK enjoyed the majority of possession; AFC's game plan was containment.

Which worked well until, right on half time, Stephen Gleeson, the home number seven smacked a bending, curling, wonder shot into the top corner of Neil Sullivan's net. It was a strike which cued a lusty chant of "you're getting beat by a franchise," from the home sections.

Yet, despite the obvious gulf in class, Neil Ardley's visitors did not crumble. In the second half thy took the game to MK. And on the hour, Jack Midson fed the ball out to Toby Ajala on the right wing and galloped towards the goal.

The youngster, on loan from Bristol City, whipped in a cross, which Midson dispatched with a superb diving header. On to the pitch poured dozens of AFC fans, thrilled by the possibility that this was the strike that signalled justice was about to be served.

And so it appeared it might be, until Otsemobor played the Grinch who stole their progress. The argument before this tie had all been about who owns history. But now, with his goal, we know one thing for sure: MK have taken the present.